Scooter Braun Reveals Where He Stands With Justin Bieber & Says Their Relationship Is ‘Not the Same’

It’s been almost a year since Scooter Braun officially retired from music management after years of shepherding the likes of Ariana Grande, J Balvin and Tori Kelly into superstardom. But before he had any of those clients, he had Justin Bieber.

In an interview on The Diary of a CEO posted Monday (June 9), the music mogul reflected on where he stands with the pop star nearly two decades after Braun first discovered the then-13-year-old Bieber back when he himself was just 25. “We were able to achieve some amazing things,” the businessman began. “I’m very proud of what we achieved and always rooting for him.”

Now that they no longer work together, however, Braun confessed that his relationship with Bieber is “not the same that it was.”

“I think there comes a point where — I understand — he probably wants to go on and show that he can do it,” Braun said. “We worked together for so long and we had such extreme success, and I think you get to a point as a man where you want to show the world you can do it on your own. And I completely respect that. I think at this point, that’s what he’s doing. Myself and everyone from the old team is rooting for him.”

The SB Projects founder went on to praise Bieber and a few other former clients, noting that their successes only serve as “testimony” to what they were able to achieve together. “To see Justin move forward and succeed, to see Ariana with what’s happened with Wicked in this past year, to see Tori Kelly …,” Braun said. “Everybody that I’ve ever had a chance to work with, to see them go on and do great things on their own, it’s awesome.”

Braun announced in June 2024 that he would be retiring from artist management to focus on his duties as CEO of HYBE America, a role he stepped into after HYBE acquired his Ithaca Holdings for $1.05 billion in 2021. The news came a little less than a year after Billboard reported that the “Baby” singer was exploring other options on the management front, though a full-on split at the time seemed difficult as Bieber still had four years left on his contract with SB Projects.

Also in 2023, Grande, Balvin and Demi Lovato each parted ways with Braun’s company in quick succession. When Braun announced his retirement the following year, the mogul shouted out many of his former clients and wrote, “I will continue to root for them with the same passion that I did at each of their humble beginnings … there will never be a day where I don’t take great pride and honor in what we accomplished together.”

Even so, rumors circulated that there had been a personal rift between Braun and Bieber. That speculation was only exacerbated when the Grammy winner appeared to unfollow his former manager on Instagram in January.

But according to Braun, their professional separation was nothing personal. When asked on The Diary of a CEO whether it “hurt” to hear that Bieber wanted to go his own way, Braun said, “No, not at that point.”

“I was also at that point,” Braun said. “It had been a couple years where I knew I wanted to do something else. I wanted to find out who I was, I wanted to experiment with a different career. We were both communicating enough with each other. The writing was on the wall.”

Watch Braun’s full interview on The Diary of a CEO below.